Great Floors is enjoying strong sales and is on the path to expansion.

By Alan Dorich, Senior Editor at Knighthouse Media

Some floor covering retailers may keep their distance from their clients, but Great Floors treats them like family. “We treat every customer the way we treat our mothers,” President and CEO Doug Chadderdon declares. This philosophy can be seen in how Great Floors guides its clients through the installation process.

By its own admission, Remington Homes is a small, local builder in the Denver metropolitan area. Family-owned and focused on craftsmanship, the company competes with major national players in its market. But its reputation and longevity has allowed the small builder to claim a large chunk of the market – especially when it comes to multifamily housing.

Gardner Capital is building several affordable, high-quality multifamily developments in Texas with its new construction subsidiary. By Russ Gager

Just because an apartment building is affordable doesn’t mean it has to be low quality. “Our interest is delivering quality affordable housing units,” emphasizes Dan Rigney, senior vice president of Gardner Capital Construction Texas. “Just because a family today finds themselves on the lower economic rungs of the economy doesn’t mean they should expect an inferior product, and the developer shouldn’t accept it either. So I’m absolutely opposed to cheapening our product.

“Building quality affordable housing can be a challenge, knowing where to spend and where not to spend,” Rigney continues. “Too often, value engineering can result in not only a lower cost, but a lower quality product. For example, we will always insist on using a 30-year or better roofing product based on long-term performance and maintenance factors, but we will limit the use of architectural-grade shingles to the developments’ clubhouses and lower-level areas. For roofs that are three or four stories in the air where they really aren’t seen, we’ll maintain the 30-year roofing but eliminate the architectural shingles. This way, we maintain the underlying quality and architectural design while still being cost-effective.

“The only difference between a Chevy, a Buick and a Cadillac is the quality of the finishes inside and whether you get vinyl, leather, or cloth seats and all the fancy bells and whistles,” he continues. “They’re all sitting on the same frame and they should all work effectively. The user should expect the vehicle to perform well regardless of the nameplate – that’s the other aspect of quality. I view it the same way in the product we are building. Quality is about how well things work. I want the families and seniors who live in our communities to experience that type of functional quality.”

HBS Development Inc. builds a model home for the first time in years to showcase its talents

and generate more interest in its custom homes.

By Janice Hoppe

The Simms family name has been synonymous with custom homebuilding in Dayton, Ohio, for the past 90 years. “I am the third-generation homebuilder and Mike [Simms] is the fourth generation,” Bill Simms says. “Mike is now president and I am in the supporting role. I am very fortunate as a father to have a son who could step in and do a better job than what I did.”

HBS Development Inc. (Homes By Simms) focuses on building custom homes and property development in Dayton and throughout southwest Ohio. After many years, Homes by Bill Simms became HBS Development (Homes by Simms) to develop communities and offer multiple product lines while remaining focused on custom homebuilding.

Founded in 1977 by a Dutch oil company executive who targeted Florida for real estate investment opportunities, ZOM Living is today an award-winning U.S. multifamily development company. ZOM has joint ventured or directly developed more than 15,000 apartments.

ZOM began by investing in land and developing single-family residential and commercial, office and retail projects. Although its focus has changed, ZOM has successfully built off of that legacy.

The company’s focus on multifamily development began in 1990 with several multi-family projects in and around Orlando. As the turn of the century approached, ZOM’s focus on multi-family development grew in Florida in major markets such as Tampa Bay, Orlando, Miami, Boca Raton and Fort Lauderdale.

Dacoda Homes builds energy-efficient luxury homes that combine traditional and modern designs, and tie in natural elements of the Pacific Northwest. By Tim O’Connor

Eric Lubert’s interest in the construction business began as a child. His father built every home his family lived in growing up, and Lubert enjoyed watching him pace the work sites and interact with the subcontractors. “I could really see his passion for the process and design, as well as the business side of things,” Lubert says.

That fascination with homebuilding stuck with Lubert through adulthood. In college, he majored in construction management, and his first job out of school was for a large production builder in Detroit. But several years later, the Great Recession hit and Detroit was among the cities hit hardest by the mortgage crisis.

Building a quality business is typically like building a quality home-construction begins from the foundation up. However, Paran Homes has found remarkable success from taking an alternative approach. By taking risks in a distressed economy Paran started acquiring as much land as their resources allowed. The company then constructed a building business consisting of a tenacious team of professionals.

In 2010, a solid partnership was formed between Georgia Capital, a private equity company owned by the Marshall Family, and David “Butter” Smith, a former Crown Communities builder who oversaw the construction of over 800 homes each year. Together, they took advantage of the economic recession that left an abundance of vacant-developed home-sites listed at considerably low prices. While many builders had ceased production and cut costs, Paran was able to capitalize on the market and in many cases purchase home sites for as little as 10 percent of previous market value.

Every homeowner takes pride in their home, but not all can say that they were involved in their construction. But those in the Catalina Townhomes development can, since they are building the majority of the structures.

The $22 million project located in Santa Rosa, Calif., is a self-help, single family home project being developed by Burbank Housing, a nonprofit organization that focuses on making more housing available in Sonoma County for low-income people of all ages, backgrounds and special needs. “We have access to funding for affordable housing,” Senior Project Manager Tom Kuhn explains.